The DAN ZONE

Who would have guessed that so many low budget zombie films had been made that take place behind bars. Or that I actually have four of them in my horror collection. I must just really like zombies in jail, because it just so happens that there is a prison cell moment in my novella Zombied Out!

And speaking of gay zombie stories, Prison of the Dead is a film by homoerotic horror director David DeCouteau. However, what’s missing most from this film is anything particularly homoerotic! Usually there are shirtless young men in underwear running all over the place in his films. In this one, there’s only one guy I his tighty whities. After he only thinks he’s joking when he says to his oddly acting girlfriend, “I’ve never had sex with a zombie before. Is this going to hurt?,” he of course returns as one of the sexiest shirtless zombies I’ve ever seen. The only question is—why did this zombie decide to put his pants back on?

Anyway, the film revolves an abandoned prison, a funeral, and a bunch of friends pulling out the good old Ouija board in the prison. Up from the ground come the zombies—hooded, red-eyed executioner zombies from way back when (not sure why they were buried IN the prison). There aren’t many of them, so this isn’t a major ‘zombie’ film in any way. Just a couple of undead baddies. The film is short, and needs to be. There are limited on screen deaths backed by some bad acting (I’ll never understand how some people go into ‘acting’ thinking they can actually act when they can’t even deliver the simplest of lines naturally). The actual climax of the film is the most entertaining, with one character running back and forth past the apparently dimwitted executioner zombies, who barely get a swing in with their sharp weapons. I’m not even trying to compare, but when the friends all come back from the dead and pursue the sole survivor, there’s a tiny moment where I’m reminded of one of my favorite films, Night of the Demons. It’s only fleeting, believe me. Do not hunt this film down if you are a Night of the Demons fan. Or if you are a zombie fan. Or if you want a homoerotic DeCouteau film. I’d pretty much advise you to skip it.

As if David DeCouteau didn’t even throw us a…um…bone in his living dead prison movie, we move on to an even less male-oriented film. Shadow: Dead Riot is pretty much a female/blaxplotation film posing as a prison zombie movie.

Tony Todd is the man in this film. I’ve had the hots for him since I first saw him in Candyman, and have wanted his hook in me ever since (or at least to be chained on the log with him with honey rubbed all over my body, too). He’s so big and imposing, with that sexy evil voice. Anyway, in this film, he is prisoner “Shadow,” and he goes all Rasta, with dreads and teeth he files to points. The film opens with him being executed, but things don’t go that well for the executioners thanks to supernatural voodoo goodness.

Cut to the present, and the male prison has now become a women’s correctional facility. And so begins Reform School Girls in Da Hood! There’s no Wendy O.Williams, but there is a black female body builder who reminds me of that Sheneneh chick Martin Lawrence used to dress up as on his sitcom. Anyway, for almost an hour, we are treated to female shower scenes filled with naked chicks who look like Jesse James’ swastika tattooed piece of ass, locker room cat fights, lesbian feel-ups and kissing, and a pervy old white male doctor prowling on the female inmates.

Finally, all hell breaks loose, and it’s a fricking free-for-all. If I can follow correctly, the lead female character sort of brings “Shadow” (Tony Todd) back to life with some sort of psychic powers she has and by touching a symbol he had carved in the floor of his cell (which is now hers), the doctor turns the women into mega-powerful ‘zombies’ that bleed from the eyes by injecting them with Shadow’s blood as part of his own diabolical experiment, and the women help Shadow unleash all the dead male inmate zombies from the ground by bleeding on the lawn outside the prison (you wouldn’t believe how many female prisoners bleed on the lawn in this movie).

Anyway, once the horror finally begins (the horror that isn’t all that skanky lesbianism), we get some freak looking male zombies infiltrating the prison, plenty of gore and gut eating, a nasty zombie baby birth scene, and the female lead character going all Crouching Tiger levitation karate on Shadow’s ass. This one is definitely meant to be watched by a bunch of inebriated people at a party.

Men’s prison is where I want to be, and 1987’s Zombie Death House takes us there. The ever hunky John Saxon, after doing loads of horror films in the 70s and 80s, decided to direct this one, as well as play a role in it. But he’s overshadowed by the lead, Dennis Cole. Anyone who grew up in the 70s and 80s will recognize this blond piece of beefcake, who was actually married to Jaclyn Smith for a while. He also appeared on Charlie’s Angels, as well as dozens of other TV shows like Three’s Company, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Trapper John M.D., The Fall Guy, The A-Team. He was like a professional guest star.

In Zombie Death House, Dennis spends the first 20 minutes of the movie in a virtual mob flick, screwing the ‘boss’s’ girl until the boss catches on and has him framed. Dennis arrives at the prison and is greeted by many catcalls from the prisoners already in their cells (one of whom comments on how he’d like to see Dennis bending over). Yeah, pretty gay. I was hoping for a cavity search scene like in Jeff Stryker’s classic gay porn Powertool, but alas. Yet, the gayness doesn’t end there. This big beefy mob daddy (who happens to be the brother of Cole’s old boss) wears half shirts along with his pretty new wave blond cellmate who looks like one of the ‘straight’ members of numerous early 80s synthpop bands. The couple even has a poster of Dolph Lundgren hanging on the wall in their cell. And later on, one of the prison wardens gets the pretty boy alone and…well, you can imagine the rest! Crazy.

But, before I forget, this is also supposed to be a zombie film. This time around, John Saxon is involved in some sort of virus testing…on prisoners. Things begin with them bleeding from the nose. The first to turn into a zombie is an African-American prisoner, who ends up looking like old school Michael Jackson in the “Thriller” video. All hell breaks loose. Prisoners go crazy, prisoners go zombie. There’s a reference to one character’s love of Twinkies, which is ironic, since that was a theme in Zombieland. Not sure I would say it was an homage to this movie though. Dennis Cole has a sex dream about the female scientist trying to stop the outbreak so that we can have at least ONE naked female moment in this all-male prison film. Despite its clear b-movie cred, the zombies are pretty cool, there’s some fun gore, and there’s one awesome scene in a narrow hall where zombie hands reach through the prison bars at the living, which reminds me of something out of an early Resident Evil game. Aside from the melodramatic subplots involving all the characters, the other disappointment is the ‘family-friendly’ outcome, because there are children involved, but none of them, um, bites it.

I’ve saved the best for last. 2005’s Dead Men Walking is everything I want in a zombie film, including no mercy for the little ones! Bwah hah hah! My only problem with this film is that the voice track on the DVD isn’t synced properly, so at times, it’s like watching a Godzilla movie! eople seem to hate this movie in online reviews, but I’m not sure what more they want from a zombie flick, because this one seriously delivers. I mean, I’d sooner watch this film than ever watch 28 Days Later again. EVER.

Where as Zombie Death House takes almost an hour to get into the zombie action, Dead Men Walking opens with a dude blasting away zombies in a house—but the law doesn’t see it that way, and he’s off to jail for murder. Unfortunately, he’s already been infected, so he brings the infection along with him. Soon, he’s spewing up his guts on prisoners and wardens. Make contact with this guy’s bodily fluids, and you’re as good as living dead.

This film features running zombies, some serious gut munching and old school disemboweling. The special effects and zombie looks are awesome. The film is never boring and has some intense atmosphere, eerie lighting and good jump scares, plus a lot of contemporary shaky cam and choppy editing, although it’s never used to hide any lack of gore effects, because they are the full Monty and like the one time the camera actually sits still to show all! There are also plenty of hot guys, and yet another single blonde female trying to stop the outbreak! And again, some vile kid mutilation! Oh no they didn’t! You won’t see that in a Hollywood film. My overall favorite line in this film is when one of the guards gets puked on and barks, “I just dry cleaned this shit!” It’s a subtle nuance that shows the writer was thinking of what an actual person might say in a situation like this if he had no idea he was just covered in zombie puke. Dead Men Walking is definitely one of my favorite zombie films in my collection, and the one prison zombie film worth seeing out of these four titles. But just be warned. It kind of cheats and borrows the ending from a zombie classic, which is unfortunate, because walking away with that final cliché moment can tend to negate any appreciation some viewers might have for all that comes before it.

An awesome cyber friend of mine landed my new book in the hands of the crew at “Night of the Living Podcast” and they did a LOL funny review. The guys make one of the girls read a really scandalous excerpt from the book! Check it out. It’s Episode # 176 at notlp.com

After almost three years in print, my first book¸ Closet Monsters, has finally received some serious negative press from a customer’s review on Amazon! The biggest atrocity, according to the review, is the bad editing and typos. See, in my glamorous and pampered career as a retail copywriter, I’m just send off whatever garbage I put together to be proofread by a copy editor. I don’t deal with those petty details. But the one thing independent porn publishers don’t tell you when they accept your garbage is that, despite making you sign a contract in pig’s blood that you will make every correction and revision they send you by the strict deadlines, they don’t actually have ANY editors look at it. You send them your first draft, and the next thing you know, they send you a printed copy of your book! I learned later that they expect you to hire your own editor to proof your manuscript. So get out your red pens readers, because you can expect to find plenty more typos in my second book Horny Devils. There was no way I was handing my 5% royalty check over to some freelance editor!

Next, the reviewer despised all the name dropping. Wasn’t quite sure what that meant at first, but then I surmised that it was referring to my use of pop culture references like Good Charlotte, Silent Hill, and Resident Evil. What can I say? I grew up on popular media filled with name dropping, like Stephen King’s books, the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the movie Scream, and songs by Eminem…

And finally, my writing has too many phrases that sound like they are lifted from someone’s idea of bad writing. Nope. No plagiarized ideas or phrases. Those phrases are 100% my own bad ideas.

My only regret is that the reviewer failed to explain just how bad the content, plot and narrative of my stories are. I would have assumed the reader just didn’t have the patience enough to get past the spelling error on the very first page of the book (so graciously referenced in the review), however, there was also an error referenced from the very last story in the book. Gosh. I wish I had the time to highlight every spelling error and typo I find in every book I read from cover to cover. Heck, if I did, I might make corrections in a copy of my own book.

So there it is. I felt like a failure as an author…until now. My first bad customer review. Finally! Luckily, my years of experience in a retail environment have taught me the most important lesson of all: customers only think they’re always right. Now excuse me while I go print out the review, frame it, and hang it on my wall.

Received my copies of my new book, Horny Devils, from the publisher today, so I’m assuming it’s available for purchase. Amazon has it up, but says its ships within 10 to 13 days, so I’m not sure if they’ve gotten it at their distributors yet.

Horny Devils, my follow-up to Closet Monsters, is due out just in time for Halloween 2009! Awesome.  It already has a page on Amazon’s website. Check it out here.

Well, actually, one of my stories is in an anthology that has just won the Lambda Literary Award! The title is Best Gay Erotica 2009, edited by Richard Labonte and James Lear. Click on the link to check it out on Amazon. Congratulations to the editors and all the writers who contributed!